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I’m pleased to announce that Martialis, the orchestral piece which I referenced here in an earlier post (an early version of which was my Orchestration 1 final for Berklee Online) will get its live premier with the Unisa Music Foundation Symphony Orchestra on the 4th of May in the ZK Matthews Great Hall at the UNISA main campus. Thanks to Bryan Schimmel (who will be conducting) and Paul Rodgers for making this dream a reality. Thanks also to the uber-talented Tim Davies for taking the time to go through the score for me and send some pointers my way.

I’ve been working pretty hard at upping my game on the orchestration and arranging side of things over the past year. Here’s one of my early orchestral offerings (my first complete composition actually – this was my orchestration 1 final a few months back – submitted from the road while touring with Clegg).

It’s called “Martialis” (Latin for “Of War” or “Warlike”). I wrote this short theme with film in mind (Adventure / Period theme music). I’m keen to hear thoughts on this (especially from other composers or orchestrators) and welcome any comments and constructive criticisms. I’m still a bit unsure if it’s strong enough after the ostinato section in the middle but let me know what you think!

Thanks to Waldo Alexander for recording tandem first and second violin parts in studio on a shoestring budget. Thanks also to the Berklee Online school Orchestration and Arranging faculty for their patience and guidance and to Tim Davies for his phenomenally excellent orchestration blog debreved.

A quick interlude to say a huge thanks to Craig Neill from Cracin productions for all the time he spent knitting the Aliens video together and the shoot for extra material he did at the Baxter. He did a great job on the footage.

Here’s some more info on Cracin Productions:

CraCin Productions is an independent, Cape Town (South African) based commercial television production and media services company. CraCin Productions operates nationally as well as world wide through a variety of official partnerships with technology and media providers. As a result, CraCin Productions provides a full media services offering from Photography, Videography, Broadcast, documentary production and mobile media services.

CraCin Productions employs a variety of freelancers and is associated with the Documentary Filmakers Association, Cape Town Film Commission and National Film and Video Foundation amongst others. Through their network of contacts, as well as equipment in stock, they are fully equipped and experienced to shoot high action, real life documentaries, events, short films, television series, music videos and corporate functions as they happen.

I did a show at The Venue in Melrose Arch last month with a few friends. I played a bunch of material from my Anthems of a Stranger release and Johnny Clegg, Claire Johnston and Liesl Graham came along to perform some of their material with me and my rocking band. It was a great experience working with these exceptional artists and Brendan Ross came along to play some superb soprano sax to put the cherry on top.

All the proceeds from that show went to the Lesedi Crèche in Malatjie (near Lanseria), an organization which really puts the money to good use, funding the needs of the children from the informal settlement who attend the preschool there. We exceeded the target amount we had hoped to raise, thanks to generous donations by several people who came to the event, as well as donations from Hlengiwe Pitso (vocalist in the band) and Michael Canfield from TixSa.

In other news, Muse magazine have published a fun interview with me here and a CD review (scored 8/10!) here.

Plans are afoot for me to write and co-produce some collaborative material over the next few months with some serious South African artists for their upcoming releases. I’ll be sure to update here on how that pans out and announce when the material is released. I’m very excited at the prospect of working with these great people on their new recordings!

I am also building a studio in my home, getting advice wherever I can from people I know who have been building studios and recording for a long time. It’s going to be great to have a facility right here where I can record projects and write and I’ll be starting preprod for my next solo album in this room in a few months’ time. See pics below for progress to date. I’ll get some pics of the room up again once we’re ready to hit record, hopefully by this summer in South Africa.

On the 8th of June I’ll be performing a live show of two sets with my band and some guests at The Venue in Melrose Arch. All profits from the ticket sales will go to the Lesedi Creche in Lanseria – a preschool care centre in a traditionally underprivileged community which has several pressing needs that money will go a long way towards solving.

Tickets for the event are going at R100 for unreserved seating and R350 for reserved seats at tables with a three-course dinner. The food at The Venue is great and the show will be good fun too. Please come along and support a worthy cause.